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River Wye formally recognised as living ecosystem with intrinsic rights

Charter to be adopted along river’s entire catchment from Cambrian mountains to Chepstow and Bristol Channel The entire catchment of the River Wye has been formally recognised as a living ecosystem with intrinsic rights in a charter, a UK first that campaigners hope will help save the highly polluted river. The charter was celebrated at a community event at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival on Sunday. It includes the right to flow, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, to be supported by a healthy catchment, to regenerate, and the right to be represented, described as a “significant step” towards protecting and restoring one of the UK’s most beloved rivers. Continue reading...

Phyllida Barlow: Disruptor review – sexy latex and gobs of gum as a stately home gets trashed

Wolterton, Norfolk From an explosion of plywood chairs to something akin to bubblegum stuck to the walls, this imaginative exhibition reverberates with Barlow’s punk irreverence Wolterton Hall is folded so deeply into the countryside of the Bure Valley that you can’t even see the grand Palladian mansion when you enter the gates to the estate. This was once one of the four power houses of Norfolk, built by Thomas Ripley for Horatio Walpole. Inside, Wolterton is dripping in 18th-century treasures, furniture, then-fashionable Belgian tapestries, fusty old portraits of important types – but now also, knobbly bodily things, strange almost familiar shapes stuck to walls and chucked down the stairs, as if someone– namely Phyllida Barlow – had come in and trashed the place. It’s a difficult thing to know what to do with these former country stately homes. Many have adopted a contemporary art programme as a way of challenging their history and bringing in new visitors. Simon Oldfield – Wolterton’s artistic director, brought in by the new owners, the Ellis family, two years ago – has done more than that. He has reinvented the space, making room for new ideas to take over. There’s no better artist for that than Barlow, whose works seem to take on a life of their own wherever they go. Her exhibition begins at the entrance, where the explosive installation Untitled: Stacked Chairs greets you. The cacophony of red plywood chairs feels like a statement about throwing things out and starting again. It’s rebellious, disruptive and direct. Continue reading...

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson review – indie debut on the Women’s prize shortlist

This vivid story of a Caribbean childhood in 1960s Bradford does not stint on accounts of poverty and systemic abuse, yet is pungent with wit and colour ‘I remember growing up and smelling lanolin everywhere and the wisps of wool just floating around,” debut novelist Marcia Hutchinson has said of her home city of Bradford, then a traditional Yorkshire mill town, where she was born to Jamaican parents in late 1962. From 1948, Bradford became a destination for several thousand Windrush migrants from the Caribbean, encouraged to come to the UK as part of postwar reconstruction. What they found was frequent racism and hostility as well as cold, damp weather and inadequate housing. Hutchinson has been open about using her own difficult childhood as the inspiration for The Mercy Step, a novel that does not stint on accounts of poverty, systemic abuse and violence, yet is pungent with wit and colour. For sheer vivacity and determination, it deserves its place on the shortlist of this year’s Women’s prize for fiction. Hutchinson’s alter ego, Mercy Hanson, makes her stubborn, lively presence known “during the coldest winter of the 20th century”, speaking to us directly from her mother’s womb. “Mummy” is a God-fearing and often terrifyingly God-invoking character, “five foot nothing” with a tiny waist despite her many pregnancies. Four older children have been left “Back Home”, some adopted by other families. Mercy is the third girl to be born to Mummy and Daddy in England; another daughter and a longed for, spoiled only son soon follow. Continue reading...

Moment teacher who allegedly sexually abused and killed a baby boy he was adopting threatens to 'fight till the day I die' after he was confronted by police

Jamie Varley, 37, made the comment to a female officer interviewing him following the death of Preston Davey, 13 months.

Republicans push to extend daylight savings and stop clock switching

House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have considered adopting the Sunshine Protection Act after the president renewed a push for it last year

'I've not witnessed Jae hurt him': Moment boyfriend defends partner accused of abusing and murdering baby they were adopting is shown to court

Preston Davey died four months after being placed in the care of John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, and Jamie Varley, 37, in July 2023.

Summary of AI roundtables - February 2026

The Bank of England held roundtable meetings with representatives from regulated firms on the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML), to better understand the constraints that firms may be facing.

Thursday evening news briefing: Germany could adopt Rwanda plan paid for by UK